Part I: Marriages and the Worst Birthday

What a birthday this turned out to be…

Nearly one month of straining at the invisible chains shackling him. Nearly one month of watching a strange, American, demon take over his life and undo years of work in mere moments. Thirty-eight days of searing pain as the demon accessed his memories and skills to continue his game. Zogu's only source of solace was the fact that the frequency of the American's frequent intrusions had numbed his mind to the agony of the constant intrusions…

Well…not his only solace. Zogu had quickly discovered that the exchange went both ways. He gained access to the demon's mind and memories whenever the demon gained access to his. Doing so revealed that the American, Jack Newman was struggling with his own loss. Apparently, it had been quite a shock to fall asleep in the lap of Twenty-first century luxury and awake in Zogu's body. In certain ways, the American's anguish over losing family, friends, and his future paralleled his own, giving Zogu a certain small degree of satisfaction in fleeting moments.

Yet those moments were fleeting, particularly now that Jack had decided to stop smoking. A habit which had been second nature to Zogu, Jack found disgusting and rather than come to accept it, he had decided to fight the cravings based off his adherence to the opinions of twenty-first century doctors. Sunflower seeds, chewing gum, candy, and his abominable calisthenics all served to help distract him from Zogu's body's feverish cry for a cigarette. Zogu also surmised that all of these distractions in addition to Jack's own personal distaste for the vice was proving to be more than enough to maintain his resolve. What had begun ever so timourously had held under all the manifold pressures and seemed to be sticking. (1)

Of course, none of these things alleviated the persistent stress gnawing away in Zogu's mind. Besides the nicotine addiction, Zogu had used his frequent smoking as a way to take a short break from all of the pressures closing in on him. Now in addition to being trapped and being robbed of one of his few pleasures, Zogu also was forced to watch as the American devil methodically dismantled years of work, all the while probing his mind for advice on how to do so successfully.

Had he been able to, Zogu would have lied to him in a heartbeat. Exposing the devil for who he really was and causing either an exorcism or an execution would be infinitely better than what he was going through even if it would result in the end of his rule. But no, every time the American probed, he did so in such a manner that Zogu could only wait helplessly as he took the information he needed. While he was used to it now, the events immediately following the coronation had been the worst.

It was supposed to be a celebration of him and his achievements. It was supposed to mark his entrance…his family's entrance into the hallowed halls of European Royalty. Though things initially seemed to be going according to plan, his American possessor had other ideas. The first of which was manipulating Zogu's family and undoing over three years of work. Prior to his fateful coronation, Zogu had laboured tirelessly to free his sisters from their engagements and prepare them to instead marry into the Royal Houses of Europe. At the very least, Zogu expected them to form ties with the rich, prosperous, and western upper echelons of the European nobility. According to Jack's memories, Zogu's hopes had been wildly overestimated. In the history the American came from, all but one of his sisters remained single until their deaths. Zogu himself failed to secure a marriage into royalty and had to settle for the daughter of a Hungarian noble. Rather than attempting to succeed where Zogu had failed, Jack took a different route and instead sought to use his sister's marriages to secure Albanian political stability.

800px-Sadije_Toptani.jpg

Sadije Zogu nee Toptani​

A simple apology to Zogu's mother, Sadije, was apparently all it took to convince her. Try as he may he simply could not break through and let his mother of all people know about what was happening to him. Even the slightest twitch would have been enough as it was obvious throughout the conversation that the sudden change had aroused her suspicion, but the American retained his iron grip and played to his mother's weaknesses. Within minutes the two of them were as thick as thieves. His mother promptly confessed that she too had doubts about Zogu's initial plan of their family joining the ranks of European royalty. Still, both seemingly recognized that Zogu's earlier assassination of Kryeziu had made their task difficult. Nevertheless, capitalizing on the presence of so many notable families in the capital, over the next 48 hours, Jack and Sadije worked through intermediaries to arrange new marriages for all of his unmarried sisters.

Whereas Sadije's initial engagements had been made with an eye on improving the Zogu family's standing and wealth in the country, these new engagements were less concerned with money and more blatantly political. To be fair, the first was still concerned with money as Myzejen's engagement to Xhemil bej Dinon was kept and pushed forward as it was the only engagement Zogu had been incapable of negotiating his way out of prior to his coronation. Jack apparently had no problems with this, particularly due to the leverage it provided him over Xhemil's substantial wealth. Though Zogu wasn't quite sure what Jack intended to do with the substantial loan he secured as a part of the arrangement, apparently it had something to do with the stock market and a contraption of some sort. Jack had been able to secure similar loans from Ihsan Toptani and Ibrahim Bicakciu for their marriages to Senije and Ruhije respectively. Yet from Zogu's perspective, Jack's greatest success was in securing the support of three of the most powerful families in the country. If the Italians were to push the beys to rise up they would now face a far more difficult task.

Jack and Sadije's final matrimonial coup made this task even more insurmountable. Against all odds, they succeeded in securing the engagement of Maxhide to Mark Markagjoni. Zogu had always expected his youngest and most beautiful sister to secure an excellent match, yet even he had to admit that bringing the Markagjoni's in to the Royal family was impressive. Far less impressive than bringing home a European prince admittedly, but impressive in it's own small way. The seemingly impossible recruitment of the Markagjoni's not only brought valuable Catholic representation to the Royal clique while also securing the loyalty of the most independent of Albanian provinces in Mirdita. To their credit, Jack and Sadije haggled well enough to minimize any damage the inter-religious marriage would cause with the Albanian ulema. Maxhide's conversion to Catholicism was to be balanced out by several future marriages to console the fanatics, even though the vast majority of Albanians took no issue with inter-religious marriage.

A photo from later in OTL when Zog attempted to portray his family as a westernizing force in Albania. TTL hasn't reached that point yet. Whereas the "Zoglets" as the press termed them lived a relatively care-free life of luxury in OTL, in TTL their fate is substantially different. From L to R Ruhije, Myzejen, Nafije, Senije and Maxhide. In OTL Senije married Mehmed Abid, son of Abdul Hamid II in 1936.

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All of the drama regarding his sisters paled in comparison to Jack Arthur's most blatant political move: Zogu's own marriage. Initially, Zogu had wanted to delay his marriage in the hopes of securing an international match. Besides, he was more than happy with his paramour: Franciska de Janko. She was an expensive luxury, but one Zogu saw as necessary to deal with the stresses that came with leading a people as primitive and fractious as the Albanians. Jack had other ideas though, whereas Zogu's marriage in his history had netted little political gain either domestically or internationally before the Italian invasion of Albania, this time around Jack was eager to secure some kind of advantage.

It would have been hilarious it if wasn't so tragic. From what he could gather, Jack's overall goal was broadly similar to Zogu's. While the American understandably had no loyalty to the Zogu family, he wanted to see a modernized, independent, and prosperous Albania. Most of all he wanted to keep Albania from becoming a "Fifth Shore" for Mussolini's Italian Empire. All of that being his goal, Zogu was baffled by his decision to push ahead with Zogu's betrothal to Behije Verlaci. Nevermind the fact that her father had refused to support Zogu in exile and Zogu's own men had tried to kill him less than a year before, Shefqet Verlaci was the richest landowner in the country with intimate ties with the Italians. Most of Zogu's sources identified Verlaci as the Italians preferred candidate to replace him as leader of Albania. Perhaps this was some ill-advised attempt to "keep your friends close but your enemies closer?"

To his credit, Jack's impertinence paid off. No one was willing to deny the freshly crowned king, not even Verlaci or the Italian ambassador. His brazen approach seemingly convinced both that he had official permission from higher Italian officials. Within hours, the celebrations that were supposed to herald his ascension to the Albanian throne had been repurposed to celebrate no fewer than five "royal" marriages. Each was respectable enough, though far less opulent than Zogu had dreamt of. The stabilizing effect of these marriages on the country was noted by nearly everyone, bolstering the new monarch's reputation as a shrewd political maven.

…Shrewd, what a laugh. Jack's marriage to Behije was a minor coup at best. Yes, Verlaci had been effectively removed as a threat to the throne but only for a time. The moment Behije conceived, Verlaci would be in a better position than ever to usurp the throne, this time as Regent for his grandson. The fact that Behije was hideous added insult to injury. Zogu could feel Jack's satisfaction in prodding his vanity every time he flattered her, courted her, or made love with her. If he only knew the violation, the disgust, the torture that it all was. Somehow, Zogu suspected that Jack had an idea but he had no idea of the full measure of torment he was unleashing. One of the few small mercies was that their connection was such that Jack would never know.

Jack was also fortunately unaware of how his new household arrangements impacted Zogu. Unlike the marriage to Behije, which seemed to carry an undercurrent of spite, Zogu had a begrudging amount of respect for Jack's decision to send his remaining family back to Mati. Sadije had known Zogu his entire life, even though Jack had an astonishing amount of knowledge for an American, he couldn't keep this up forever. Fortunately, rather than marry off her and his remaining sister Nafije, Jack had sent both of them to Mati with explicit instructions to raise Nafije's son Tati to become a worthy heir to the new throne of Albania. His explicit rationale was that Sadije's continued presence in the Royal Manse would only complicate his new marriage and tenuous "alliance" with Verlaci. Zogu's mother was no fool, yet she was also politically astute and Jack's explanation seemed logical if sudden and out of character. She accepted, taking Nafije and Tati as well as Adile's children Sherafedin and Teri, and a few servants leaving Zogu even more isolated in his own home.

As he expected, Behije insisted on replacing some of Zog's servants with her own people, likely all part of her father's plan to gain more control and influence. Fortunately, Jack was aware of all this and worked on maintaining something of a network and keeping an eye on the Verlaci faction. Yet amidst all of this even Zogu could see that Jack had far bigger ambitions than sitting on his current laurels. Accumulating millions of francs worth of loans had been part of a bigger plan. Every spare moment Jack had he occupied with scribbling furiously in his notebook. Zogu honestly couldn't follow everything but it seemed like something known as the "Great Depression" featured prominently in Jack's plan, that, the "Joiner … East Texas Oilfield" and a pair of odd "L" shaped objects among many other things…

Notes

1). Zogu's smoking in OTL was legendary and contributed to rumors that he smoked 100 packs a day. Though this is certainly an exaggeration, his smoking did play a major role in the health scare which prompted his first trip abroad to Vienna in 1931.